Every Friday, Marilyn Knapp Litt, who blogs at ClassicKindle.com, brings us her recommendation of a free classic book to discover (or rediscover) on Kindle.  Find more of Marilyn’s recommendations at her blog,  ClassicKindle.com,  a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the Kindle. You can also get Marilyn’s blog on Kindle and I recommend that you “Like” the Classic Kindle Facebook page as well so you don’t miss anything. Here’s Marilyn’s post:

Here is one of the reasons why I do this blog. I decided to download Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Searching Amazon for this title, the first page showed 12 versions and none were free. On page four, after innumerable “turns,” I finally found the free copy I knew had to be out there. (It has a linked table of contents, by the way.)

It is just not as easy as it should be to download the free classic works. Before I got to the 44th title, which is the free title linked above, I passed up a perfectly good version published by the trustworthy mobi for .89, innumerable copies under $5.00, books that were NOT even this title and a copy inexplicably offered for $44.99! I guess if you sell just one copy at this outrageous price, it was worth the trouble to convert it to the Kindle format and upload it.

The book starts with a story telling session, as this novella is a story narrated by a house guest:

‘I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got up to present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with his hands in his pockets. “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard [this story]. It’s quite too horrible.” This, naturally, was declared by several voices to give the thing the utmost price, and our friend, with quiet art, prepared his triumph by turning his eyes over the rest of us and going on: “It’s beyond everything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.”

“For sheer terror?” I remember asking.

He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at a loss how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made a little wincing grimace. “For dreadful–dreadfulness!”

“Oh, how delicious!” cried one of the women.

He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead of me, he saw what he spoke of. “For general uncanny ugliness and horror and pain.” ‘

The Turn of the Screw is a truly creepy story. Some of the pre-copyright books surprise us by just how up-to-date they seem. This story of mysterious evil just seems to get more puzzling and disturbing and I’m sure it will be giving chills in 2111.

Get your free copy of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James here >>>

Every Friday, Marilyn Knapp Litt, who blogs at ClassicKindle.com, brings us her recommendation of a free classic book to discover (or rediscover) on Kindle.  Find more of Marilyn’s recommendations at her blog,  ClassicKindle.com,  a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the Kindle. You can also get Marilyn’s blog on Kindle and I recommend that you “Like” the Classic Kindle Facebook page as well so you don’t miss anything. Here’s Marilyn’s post:

The full title is apparently The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains but I have read it several times and only know it as The Virginian.

What a good book this is! It is one of the better Westerns and just a very absorbing, entertaining novel. It was written in 1902, when we were not that far removed from what is termed “the old West.”

It was now the Virginian’s turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.

Therefore Trampas spoke. “Your bet, you son-of-a—.”

The Virginian’s pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: “When you call me that, SMILE.” And he looked at Trampas across the table.

Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell on the large room. All men present, as if by some magnetic current, had become aware of this crisis. In my ignorance, and the total stoppage of my thoughts, I stood stock-still, and noticed various people crouching, or shifting their positions.

Now some people say this narrator – a greenhorn who is friends with the eponymous protagonist – mars the book. Sometimes his presence is forced and perhaps he is annoying at times, but I can’t say he interferes with my enjoyment of the novel.

It is deservedly well known as an iconic Western that was made into movies and a television show. But, as a teenager I was delighted with the love story and I enjoyed re-reading it as an adult for the romance. Which does not mean I don’t enjoy a good throw down over cards!
Download your free copy of “The Virginian” by Owen Wister here >>>